


Precious Baby Kitten

by Not_You



Series: Animal Ears [4]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Kemonomimi, Anal Play, Animal Instincts, Animal Traits, Biting, Canon-Typical Violence, Come Marking, F/M, Family Feels, Frottage, Kemonomimi, M/M, Mad Science, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 22:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: Miles from shore, the Boss is going to brief him at last, and Jack really does feel pretty confident in his ability to take whatever insane truth is driving them, but that's before she starts talking about human-animal hybrids.  Some kind of secret Japanese project begun half a century ago.In which the Boss goes AWOL to collect her son.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This can be how it all began in the Animal Ears universe, but it doesn't have to be.

When the Boss said she was going rogue and Jack could come with her or they could fight to the death right then, for once in his life, Jack took the easy path.  Of course he went with her.  She's the one he was ever really loyal to in the first place, the closest thing to a mother he has in the world.  He hadn't even asked what they were doing until they were well under way in a stolen boat, because really, it doesn't matter.  It kind of matters that the rest of the crew consists of the Cobra Unit, but he always figured they were like him.  More loyal to the Boss than to anyone or anything else.   
   
Miles from shore, the Boss is going to brief him at last, and Jack really does feel pretty confident in his ability to take whatever insane truth is driving them, but that's before she starts talking about human-animal hybrids.  Some kind of secret Japanese project begun half a century ago.   
   
"They created life, Jack," she tells him, with a wry little twist to one corner of her mouth, "de novo, like God, and all they could think about was how to monetize it."   
   
"Doesn't seem like that should be any surprise, Boss," Jack says, and the Pain chuckles.   
   
"Maybe not," the Boss says, "but I was young once.  Twenty-one years ago, I became involved.  They needed someone to carry their second generation hybrid.  You've seen the scar, Jack.  It's the only proof that I was once a mother."   
   
"Holy shit," Jack says, thinking of the thing's immense and serpentine expanse.  The first time he had seen it he had been trying to keep the Boss from bleeding out, and even then had stared at it while he worked, horrified at its implications.  Jack may not know much about gynecology, but there's no need for a Caesarian section to look like that.   
   
"They had to fight me to take him," the Boss says quietly, and Jack does his best to ignore the way it makes his eyes sting.   
   
"Of course they did, Boss," is what he says aloud, and she smiles, just a little.   
   
The Boss has not actually held her son or seen him in person since his violent birth, but she has carefully-gathered intel, which includes covert photography of a slender, graceful boy with pale skin and hair and the distinctive ears and tail of an ocelot.  He cannot possibly be twenty yet, and Jack cocks his head as he examines the image.   
   
"Boss," he says at last, "I don't...  I know it takes a while, but he doesn't look old enough."   
   
"It took a lot more than the usual while," she says, and there's something so haunted in her face that it makes Jack feel sick, and cold all over.     
   
Jack had been assuming it was some kind of test tube situation, but now his mind insists on calling up a vision of his mentor, his Boss, the closest thing he has to a mother, raped by some bestial creature.  As many times as it took.  Judging by the photos that was about a year and a half.  The Boss told him once that as a woman on the battlefield these things happen, and had looked into his eyes like she was daring him to be horrified, but this...   
   
"Oh fuck, Boss," Jack says, his voice cracking in a way it hasn't since he was a kid.  He looks up from the photo to meet her eyes again, and she doesn't look away.   
   
"It wasn't like that," she says softly.  "IVF wasn't producing the results they wanted.  They wouldn't have minded if their creation had forced himself on me, but he didn't."  Now she does look away, and swallows the way Jack does when he's trying not to cry.  "I loved him, they killed him, all I have left are my sons and my team," she says, and Jack has no idea how to feel as the overlap of that particular Venn diagram.   
   
They spend three weeks at sea making their plan, and then Jack slips over the side under cover of night, and swims to the secret island installation where what their adversaries call Hybrid 00 and the Boss calls Adam is being kept in a specially-designed holding cell.  Apparently ocelots are very territorial, and Jack might have to tranq the bastard and drag him out.  He has the Boss's handkerchief, but who knows if Adam will recognize her scent.   
   
Creeping through darkened corridors, Jack orients himself by his memorized map of this enormous facility and ducks in and out of hiding, sometimes so close to the various patrol routes that he doesn't even breathe.  He listens, and hears the usual chatter of a base, bored guards going through the motions and who would fuck which actress.  Nobody holds a candle to Marilyn Monroe, if you ask Jack, but of course no one does.  When Jack can afford to make a little noise, he checks in with the Boss to make sure he's still on the right track.  She sounds so much calmer than he knows she is.     
   
The Boss helps Jack to find his way into the heart of the installation, their contacts brief and professional.  They have to at least pretend that this is any other mission, and Jack's heart only flutters a little as he finally approaches the last door that should take him into the area reserved for Adam and those working directly with him.  The lock is tricky, but far from impossible.  The door opens into darkness, and Jack slips inside.


	2. Chapter 2

The Boss says that Adam is kept in the back of this massive laboratory, and Jack picks his way through ranked computers and office chairs and overgrown chemistry sets, everything dead quiet.  There are no guards in here because eggheads always need to have everything just fucking so, and to be fair, there isn't much to steal that isn't essentially nailed down by its massive weight, cumbersome shape, or both.  There's a massive door at the very back, something that would probably take C3 to get into the hard way.  Jack has the code, and the tiny beeps of each number as he enters it hit his ears like screams.   
   
Jack does not know a hell of a lot of natural history.  He knows that he can eat most things, if he puts his mind to it, and how to tell one kind of track from another, but he has never really read up on wildcats.  The Boss found him some stuff on ocelots, so he knows they're territorial and mark with urine, but Christ, the stink in here!  It makes his eyes burn, and he squints through tears in the thicker dark, hoping that the part about ocelots being violently territorial isn't going to force him to fight his sort-of brother to the death.   
   
As Jack's streaming eyes struggle to adjust, he registers the presence of the kind of random objects that might make a good cat toy for a cat almost six feet tall, beams like branches, and various piles of bedding that must stink to high hell.  Jack is taking out the handkerchief and hoping that the atmosphere doesn't just make it smell like cat piss, too, when he sees two green gleams of light up in the beams.   
   
It feels incredibly stupid, but Jack offers the little conciliatory chirping noise that the Boss taught him to make.  He gets a low growl and a vicious hiss in response, and then someone fast, light, and incredibly strong for their size plummets down from the beam and Jack is rolling on the floor with Adam, struggling to keep his clawed fingers away from anything vulnerable and ignoring every instinct to strike back.     
   
The handkerchief is far out of focus right now, but suddenly Adam eases up a little, making that weird fucking growling noise that cats do when they're completely freaking out.  It's still hard to see, but Jack can see that those spotted ears are laid back flat on the kid's fair hair.  Jack just stays flat on his back, Adam straddling his waist and still making that noise, sounding less and less savage and more and more fearful as his tail lashes.   
   
"It's okay," Jack says softly, the way he would talk to a nervous dog.  "It's okay."  Apparently no one is sure just how much Adam understands, but the Boss says she taught her child's father at least the rudiments of literacy, and that he hid his intelligence from the scientists as much as he could, with an excellent eye to strategy.  "Come with me, and I'll explain everything," he says, and he can see the curiosity overtaking this cat.   
   
"Rraowl," Adam tells him, and stands up, offering a graceful, very human hand, claws retracted.  The little diamonds of visible keratin look almost nothing like human nails, but that's it.  The sleeve of his weird institutional pajamas is a little short on him, like he has grown since they were issued to him.    
   
Jack lets the kid help him up.  "Anything here you want to keep?" he asks.  Adam scans the room, and then retrieves a pair of red gloves from one corner.  They probably stink as bad as everything else in here, but the kid has a right to his own things.   
   
More than anything, as they make their way back out of the maze, Jack really wishes he had baking soda or something to scrub Adam down with.  He really does reek, and it only gets more noticeable the further away they get from the lab.  It's only a matter of time before someone smells them.  Or before Jack coughs, pressed into hiding places with Adam and swallowing around the prickle of ammonia in his throat.  Fucking hell, however intelligent he might be, Adam can not be right in the head.  Only a crazy person stinks like this.   
   
At least the inmates of the installation are used to reeking laundry and trash carts coming out of the lab, so the first few to smell Adam don't really notice.  They just sneeze and mutter about how much this job sucks.  It's only as Jack and Adam get closer to their planned exit that people start to get suspicious.  Jack manages to tranq the first guard who tries to call in a possible containment breach, but soon they have to run.  Adam is, if anything, faster than Jack, and the way he reaches back to haul him along with one clawed hand is sort of touching, even if it is out of self-interest.   
   
Just as they plunge out into the cold sea air, a shot rings out and there's a spray of red from Jack's left shoulder.  He can't help letting out a bark of pain, and Adam hisses what is probably a dire curse in the secret language of the wild ocelot, claws popping out even as he keeps dragging Jack forward. 


	3. Chapter 3

The impact of jumping twenty feet into the open sea on a fresh gunshot wound is something unique even in Jack's personal history of pain, and he's pretty sure he blacks out for a couple of minutes.  When he's aware again, Adam is hauling him along, a strong swimmer just as the Boss said he would be.  He growls in a way that sounds irritable and also deeply worried, and Jack coughs a laugh, the muscle contractions sending fresh waves of agony through his shoulder.   
   
"That way," he manages, and points with his good arm.  Adam makes a weird little noise of acknowledgement, and keeps swimming.  Jack helps as much as he can with his legs, left arm fucked for now and right one locked in Adam's grip.   
   
The Cobra Unit are waiting for them when they arrive, the Fury and the End watching the sea with weapons at the ready while the Pain and the Fear haul Adam and Jack up.  They have to go at the same time, since Adam still won't let go.   
   
"Boss," the Fear says into his radio, "package secured."   
   
The boat makes a massive wheeling turn to what the Fear insists upon referring to as starboard, and Jack and Adam make their way into the cabin, soaked to the skin and now really starting to shiver.  The Boss is there with towels that are even sort of clean.  Adam stares at her with huge eyes, ears flattening out to the sides.   
   
"It's okay," Jack says, struggling to peel off his sneaking suit with only one good arm, "she's not gonna hurt you."   
   
Still tense, Adam starts to strip out of his wet clothes, watching as the Boss goes to help Jack with his own.  Soon both of them are wrapped in towels, and the Pain and the Fear have come down to assist.  The Fear is probably the best at first aid, used to looking after himself in the wake of his various surgeries.  It's a clean shot at least, the bullet going into meat on one side and out the other, the bone not even nicked.   
   
While the Fear works, Jack watches as the Boss offers her son her hand, letting him catch it between both of his own and sniff it thoroughly.  He still looks pretty freaked out, but a weird, soft, hopeful look is trying to spread across his pointy little face.  The Boss gives him a smile so soft and so warm that Jack has to look away, feeling like an intruder.  When he risks a glance back over, Adam is clinging to the Boss, hugging her like she'll keep him here, the way someone might grab a dock support in a storm.  She murmurs to him too quietly to hear, and Jack looks away again.  He hasn't actually wept in years, but his eyes are filling with water now.  The Fear is kind enough to pretend not to notice.   
   
"Get some rest, Snake," is all he says, patting Jack's uninjured shoulder, and Jack nods.   
   
"Thanks," he says, and stands on weary legs to make his way to his berth, which is crammed in with the Pain's.  He's still out on deck, though, and Jack is able to stretch out and have a smoke without anyone trying to convince him of the ferocious beauty of hornets.  He's still too keyed up to sleep, but he's in no position to do anything useful.   
   
Long after the cigarette burns away and Jack has slid into a light doze, a stealthy little sound at the door snaps him right out of it.  Adam is peeking around the edge in a way that is very much like a kitten, one gloved hand curled around the edge of the doorway, and Jack can't help a smile.   
   
"Myurr?" Adam asks, and Jack chuckles.   
   
"Hey," he says by way of greeting, and gestures for Adam to come in if he wants.     
   
Adam apparently does want, prowling in and sitting down on the Pain's berth.  At least an enforced ocean bath and a fresh set of fatigues have taken down the stink some, even if there is still a definite note of cat piss.  He watches Jack with eyes that are ice grey in the light, ears pricked forward with interest as he studies Jack for a long moment.  He looks at the empty sardine can serving as an improvised ashtray, and then looks back to Jack, letting out an appealing little mew.   
   
"You smoke?"  It's a pretty weird thought, but then again, if Jack had been working in that lab, he would've enveloped himself in tobacco smoke at all times, to fight the piss smell.  Adam nods, and so Jack shrugs and taps another two out of the pack, setting them both between his lips and lighting them.  Once they're going, he passes one to Adam, who accepts it with a pleased purr, taking his first puff with an expression of relief that Jack has felt on his own face a lot of times, and then blowing it out as a perfect smoke ring.   
   
"Did you steal them from the lab staff?" Jack asks, and laughs at the look of exaggerated innocence that Adam gives him.  "Of course you did.  I think just about everybody on this tub smokes, so you'll just have to ask."   
   
"Mrrow," Adam says, in a tone of assent, and sighs, kicking back onto the berth like it's his own, sending more smoke rings toward the ceiling. 


	4. Chapter 4

The Pain would cheerfully let Adam have his bunk, but all those hornet pheromones makes Adam edgy and likely to pee on it, and instead he bunks with the Boss.  Apparently ocelots tolerate their kittens in the same territory for a good while after maturity, so sleeping in his mother's quarters is strange for Adam, but it seems to be a good strange.  He curls right up in the bunk provided, and only puts a delicate spot of piss on one corner of his blanket.   
   
The Boss says that Adam is probably as nocturnal as a real ocelot, and not to be surprised if they find him creeping around at night, but they have her permission to slap him if he pisses on anything important or scratches anyone.   
   
It's very kind of her to give them this warning, because it keeps Jack from completely freaking out when he's on his way to the head at five a.m. and almost runs into a naked catman.  Adam hisses at him, tail lashing and ears flat.  Jack just sighs.   
   
"Look, Adam," he says, "my back teeth are fucking floating, I just need to get by."   
   
Adam blinks, tail quieting and ears coming up again.  He stands aside, and Jack staggers past him to piss what feels like a goddamn gallon.  Adam is still there when he comes out, still naked, and really, Jack will admit to himself at least, a work of art.  He watches Jack with those icy grey eyes, and Jack stares back.   
   
"Mrrowl," Adam offers at last, and relaxes.   
   
"I can't answer for anyone else," Jack says, "but I don't care if you go around naked."   
   
Adam lets out a happy chirp, and frisks off down the corridor in a way that makes his balls bounce.  Jack just shakes his head and staggers back to bed, downing a few more painkillers for his arm.   
   
Now that they have Adam aboard, it's time to head for the tiny corner of South America that the Boss has carved out as an at least temporary refuge for her son.  She wants him to be able to climb trees and have a properly sized territory.  Apparently some of the stink in the lab was due to a territorial sort of nervousness.  Every instinct Adam has tells him to maintain a large territory and travel through it.  Trapped in that little room off the lab, he had been gripped with the need to mark it as strongly as possible.  It's a testament to Adam's affection for his newly-discovered mother that in this new, even more confined environment, he doesn't pee on _everything_ , just some things.   
   
Still, when Jack goes in search of clean underwear and finds it all drenched in piss, he is more than a little put out.  He knows that he can't just punch Adam in the mouth when they've gone to so much trouble over him and this is assuredly at the prompting of his feline instincts, but it's damned tempting.  As it is, he takes his soaked briefs out onto the deck, where Adam is sitting up by the bow, looking like a very weird cigarette ad in his fatigues, red gloves, and the huge pair of sunglasses the Boss has provided for her nocturnal child.   
   
"Adam," Jack says, and Adam looks over at him with a sweet smile that turns into a slightly hunted look when he sees and smells what Jack is carrying.  "Why is my underwear your territory?" he asks, and Adam grimaces, looking away across the ocean, smoke streaming away on the breeze.  When he repeats the question Adam hisses and spits like a cat faced with a hostile dog, and flees below deck.  Jack heaves a sigh, and goes to wash his skivvies in sea water.

Jack mutters curses to himself as he works, with asides about how he has never liked cats and that he’ll put up with a lot for the Boss but that this is a bit much even for him. A dusty chuckle makes him jump and whip around. The End spends most of his time ‘resting his eyes,’ but he can still creak around with some real stealth.

“I think it means that he likes you,” he says, and Jack rolls his eyes, still scrubbing.

“Fucking great, I’ve got a piss-reeking ocelot pulling my pigtails.”

“Fucking great!” the End’s parrot agrees, and Jack snorts.

“Don’t make me eat you, Polly.” The parrot’s name is not Polly, but since the End insists that her name is a high, complicated whistle, it’s what they’ve ended up calling her. She gives Jack a disapproving look and duplicates the sound of a human blowing a raspberry.

“She would be almost as stringy as I am,” the End says, stroking her green feathers. “Is there tea?”

“The Fear left you a little tray in the galley.”

“Ah, how considerate,” the End says, and turns that way.

Jack has never been sure if the Fear is the End’s boyfriend or the son he never had, and watching the old man shuffle off to collect his neatly-laid tea tray does nothing to resolve the question. It was kinda weird to see a guy who has actually had plastic surgery to be more terrifying making sure that a loved one’s biscuits are arranged just so, but if Jack couldn’t take weird, he’d have broken years ago.


	5. Chapter 5

The Boss has probably always suspected, but Jack doesn’t actually figure out that Adam can talk until they’ve been at sea for another three days. It’s still another two weeks to their destination, and it’s a quick slide from being irritated with how much of the journey still lies ahead to being grateful for it when a cadre of assholes in frog suits show up. The End is able to snipe a few of them off of their little motor launch as they approach, but it's dark, the sea is choppy, and they come in fast.

Engaged in close combat with the people boarding his ship, Jack is filled with the wild urge to laugh, the present superimposing itself over his childhood’s pirate games in a dizzying, hallucinatory rush. Soon it’s too close for gunplay and they’re working with knives, everyone splashed in blood.

Despite the team’s best efforts, two of the last intruders slide belowdecks, to where Adam is. As the Boss is turning toward them with a look in her eyes that even Jack has never seen, there’s an explosive and terrible yowling that echoes up into the open air. Everyone pauses for just a second at that sound, and then it’s time to fight harder than ever, since now the invaders are trying to get to their colleagues. No one fights harder than the Boss, though, not ever and especially not right now. She is a thing of terrible beauty as she slashes her way to the trapdoor just in time for it to blow open with the impact of an eviscerated corpse. Adam lets out another horrible yowl, struggling with his remaining opponent on the ladder, and just as the Boss reaches him to help, he gets a grip on the back of the guy’s head and fucking brains him on the edge of doorway, just as neat as you could wish.

“Adios, motherfucker,” Adam growls, and then one bloodied hand flies to his mouth, covering it as he looks around with huge eyes. Lucky for him, there’s only his own side left to hear.

They don’t immediately have time to figure out how many words Adam knows in which languages, because they have to get this tub up to a better speed and make a few detours. All that night and the next day they’re busy cranking as much out of their ancient engine as they can, and Jack re-injures his arm doing emergency repairs and is no mood for anything when they finally land on a tiny island that isn’t much more than a rock but does have one real spring of fresh water. 

As soon as he can, Jack goes to bed, barely even noticing the urine stain on the edge of the pillow. As such, he sleeps through the Boss finding out that her son has learned surprisingly good English from lab staff and, of all things, cowboy movies. He also knows some Russian and a fair amount of Japanese, and has spent his entire life practicing in secret.

When Jack comes wandering out onto the sand in the morning, he finds the Boss sitting on a rock with Adam, their fair hair gleaming in the sun. She’s patiently listening as he haltingly reads aloud from a crumpled article about hornets that the Pain keeps like a normal guy would do with a favorite snapshot of the family, since they don’t exactly have a library on board. The Fury is refilling the water tanks while the End naps and the others keep watch, and the whole scene is kinda domestic and peaceful in a way Jack really isn’t used to.

“-the t-tox-ic-ity v-varies acc… according to--” He’s really doing pretty well, and Jack is sorry when the poor kid looks up, catches sight of him, and blushes bright red, immediately clamming up. The Boss pats his shoulder and looks over at Jack.

“Feeling better?” she asks, and when he shrugs it hurts, but not too much to handle.

“Little bit, yeah,” he says, and looks around at all the gleaming sand and rock, and the brave greenery of the few plants that can make it out here.

“We’re just here until we get the water loaded and do a better job on the engine,” the Boss says, and Jack nods. 

There’s enough time to do a little fishing, and soon he’s stripped down to his boxers in the surf, doing his best with an improvised spear and about one and a half arms. Even with these drawbacks he spears a few big, silvery fish that are probably delicious, whatever else they may be. Wading back to shore, he sees that Adam is waiting for him, soaking wet and completely naked. He has a very good catch of his own, and when Jack compliments him on it, he struts on ahead like a proud housecat with a mouse.

The Fear helps them clean their fish, and the Fury starts a small fire to cook on while Adam crunches up all the discarded heads and a lot of the fins. With his bright eyes and gently waving tail, he really does remind Jack of a kitten. Jack catches the Boss’s eye over Adam’s head, and he can see her thinking the same thing.

The End has been taking one of his geriatric naps for the past hour, but he snaps awake at the smell of fresh fish, and even shuffles off to the boat’s tiny and pathetic galley, emerging with salt and white vinegar, quietly lamenting their not having any lemon. Adam seems to have mostly filled up on heads and fins, but Jack makes sure that he gets a portion, anyway. He’s more than half human, he ought to eat like one sometimes. Jack also realizes that if he said this out loud, the entire Cobra Unit would laugh at him.


	6. Chapter 6

Another week out and several detours later, they seem to have genuinely lost their pursuit. It’s just as well, it’s getting too fucking hot to fight. Everyone spends hours just lying around the deck, and only Jack even has the dubious excuse of being lightly injured. 

Adam practically melts into a puddle, grumbling whenever the Boss shows up to slather more sunscreen on his back before tossing him the bottle to finish the job. He’s lackadaisical about it until his sunward shoulder burns. It’s almost funny how much it distresses him, but sunburn has to be pretty fucked up if you’ve spent your whole life in a lab, and Jack follows the alarmed grumbling down to the galley, where the Fear is applying ointment while the Pain makes soothing noises. Adam squeaks in alarm at the sight of Jack, and he holds up his empty hands as peacefully as he can.

“Hey,” he says, “just making sure you’re all right.”

“I am,” Adam mutters, a cat betrayed by its sunbeam. His tail flicks in a way that makes Jack glad for the world at large that vengeance isn’t within his power on this one.

“This is why the Boss is always slathering you in stuff,” Jack says, “sorry nobody thought to explain it.” It makes him feel a little sick, actually, how used Adam must be to people wandering up and doing things to him without explanation. They should probably try to work on that.

Adam shrugs. “I know she has good sense,” he says, tail still twitching wrathfully.

“Somehow I think you’ll live, pardner,” the Pain drawls, and Adam makes an irritated little catnoise in the back of his mouth.

“There,” the Fear says. “If I were in your position, I would wear clothes for the next few days.” He pauses. “Well, at least a shirt, and that would look silly without pants.”

Adam makes the same sort of ‘mmrrrreeehh’ noise and hops off of the table. The Fear wipes it down with disinfectant, and Adam asks whose clothes he’s even supposed to wear. The Fear’s won’t fit, the Pain’s are doused in wasp pheromones, no one is even sure if the End has clothes besides that fucking leaf ghillie suit of his, they know that the Fury doesn’t have other clothes, and wearing his mother’s spare fatigues is weird, and they're too heavy for the weather, anyway.

Jack chuckles. “You forgot someone, Adam. Hang on a second.”

Among his various types of tactical gear and plain BDUs, Jack always keeps a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt. It’s pretty much the opposite of a uniform, while being just as simple and familiar. He digs them out, shakes the fold lines away, and picks up a light fatigue jacket to protect the rest of Adam’s arms, if he can bear it in this heat. That done, Jack heads back to the galley, where he initiates Adam into the mysteries of the zipper while the Fear and the Pain try to figure out where to cut the hole for his tail. Adam makes another displeased noise at the stiffness of the denim, but Jack has to privately admit that it looks great on him. He just stands there with the jeans at mid-thigh as the Fear holds the fabric and the Pain makes a few careful snips, and then makes an odd noise as they thread it through.

“Bet that feels weird,” Jack says, “but it doesn’t hurt or anything, right?”

“Right,” Adam says, reaching back to settle the hole properly and adjust his fur. “Thank you,” he adds, to the others, and they really have done a good job. The jeans sit where they should, without any weird wrinkles, and his tail is able to settle into its natural position in a way that looks comfortable. The shirt is a little too big for him, and Jack has never realized that someone could have pretty collarbones, but Adam does. It’s weird.

Adam still spends a lot of his time naked, but he shows no inclination whatsoever to give Jack’s clothes back. At least he tried, dammit, and Adam does take the sunscreen more seriously now, avoiding further damage. He even starts bringing the bottle to Jack to get his back covered, grumbling contentedly as Jack slathers his pale skin. Jack can’t deny that Adam is nice to touch. He’s all lithe and hard and his skin is so fucking smooth. It seems like a guy that’s part wildcat ought to be hairier, but all Adam has besides pubic hair is a little trail down his belly, just as fair as the hair on his head.

By the time they're near the Boss’s Undisclosed Location, Adam isn’t the only one running around naked or nearly so. Even the Fury cracks his suit, sitting around with the top half of all his horrendous scarring hanging out. Without his helmet on it’s easier to see that he’s pissed to be alive. He likes to sit on the edge of the deck and burn a pack of cards one by one, the way a normal person would play solitaire. Apparently the Pain’s little friends also get something out of it, so often he’s sitting there next to the Fury, buzzing softly as he watches the cards burn. The End of course spends most of his time asleep, leaving the Fear and Polly to have little whistling conversations while the Boss stretches out and does her best to get a tan, patiently explaining the process to Adam when he asks.

“You’re pale like your father, though,” she says, “you shouldn’t try it.”

Jack has been more than a little curious about Adam’s father, and carefully does not indicate that he even heard, staring out across the sea because it’s his shift as lookout. Below him, the Boss tells Adam about his father, who was quiet, and shy, and very beautiful.


	7. Chapter 7

The Boss has kept the coordinates of their final destination to herself, but she tells the End on the morning of one of their last few days at sea, so he can help her guide the boat. The rest of them just watch the green northwest coast of South America as it approaches, and everyone truly odd-looking hides belowdecks as they make their way through a little port town and then up the river.

As soon as they’re far enough out to afford looking like the freakshow that they are again, Adam is fascinated by all the jungle noises. He leans over the railing to watch the river and the trees as they go by, all that impossible green piled between them and the sky. The first time he catches a bird on the wing, Jack jumps, but soon he’s used to it. Adam is damned fast, and soon the white t-shirt is a mottled brown t-shirt, covered in bloodstains. Polly starts to avoid Adam, even as he swears to her that he never even catches anything green, that committed to her safety and the End’s emotional well-being.

When they finally reach their destination, Jack has to commend the Boss’s taste. They’re way the fuck up in the mountains, and have to portage everything up and behind a waterfall to where the Boss has built a little installation into a natural cave system. It’s not much, but it can be home. On the high side there’s nothing but miles and miles of forest. They do have neighbors, but it’s just a little village to the west, where the locals tend to keep to themselves.

“I don’t think they want anyone to realize that they’re not even pretending to be Catholic,” the Boss explains, all of them resting in the main cave, exhausted from hauling everything up here. “They still have a bit of a wildcat cult going on, and that’s part of why we’re here. Hopefully they’ll never even know about us, but if they do catch a glimpse of Adam, there’s a chance he’ll slot right into the local mythology.”

Jack smiles, sure that Adam would enjoy being a small god, and then yawns, because it has been one hell of a long day. With her usual consideration for her comrades, the Boss has made sure that everyone has their own room. They’re small, and there’s nothing to sleep in so far but hammocks, but Jack is just grateful for his own space and a good mosquito net. He drops off almost immediately, and wakes up to find the stiff body of a big green lizard tucked in beside him. It has spiky scales around its head, and Jack grins when he sees its throat was ripped out in what must have been a single neat movement of one of Adam’s claws. Maybe he’s trading back for the clothes.

According to the Pain, the thing is called an iguana, and there’s good eating on it. The first point admits a doubt, but the second does not. Jack devours every bit of it that he can actually chew, and counts it an excellent breakfast. Apparently Adam is out with the Boss, surveying their domain and climbing real trees at long last. Jack is content to lounge around the base, making coffee and performing small repairs as he waits for them to get back.

Polly lets them know when the Boss and Adam are approaching, and soon they’re coming through the door, both looking touseled and bright-eyed. Adam seems weirdly embarrassed around Jack, the way he gets sometimes, but when Jack thanks him for the lizard he beams. Along with cigarettes, Adam has acquired a taste for black coffee loaded with sugar. Even though they’re gonna end up rationing it, for now his mother lets him have as much as he likes, a shocking display of sentiment.

As they settle into their new headquarters, Adam keeps bringing Jack small game. He’ll vanish at sunset and spend the whole night running and climbing around, coming back at dawn streaked with mud and with blood, wild-eyed and happy. He brings Jack another lizard, and some kind of guinea pig thing, and on this particular morning, something the size of a small pig. It’s late for Adam to be getting back, and he looks very tired as he drags the carcass in. There’s bruising under the dirt this time, and a little trickle of blood from one eyebrow has dried on his cheek. He blushes when he sees Jack already up and making coffee, but visibly collects himself before he speaks.

“Good morning, Jack.”

“Morning, Adam. You bring that back to share?”

“...It’s for you,” Adam mutters, and Jack isn’t sure what he’s so embarrassed about. Maybe it’s another cat thing, and he hates being seen in a state that makes it obvious that catching this thing really was hard work.

“Looks like it could feed the whole team. Do we even know what it is?”

“Reckon it’s a capybara,” Adam says, and Jack just shrugs and downs the rest of his coffee, setting the mug down and rolling up his sleeves.

“Well, come on,” he says, turning to lead the way outside again, “I’ll show you how to get the skin off.”

Jack isn’t surprised at all to find that Adam is a very quick study, and that his claws are at least as good as Jack’s knife. He beams when Jack says so, and there’s something weirdly pretty about him, with the blood all over his pale skin. Way back when this whole mission started, the Boss had shown Jack some photos of real ocelots, and he has to admit that this hybrid has a lot of that beauty and grace.


	8. Chapter 8

They’ve been here for about two weeks when the Boss comes up to Jack one early morning as he’s grilling another big green lizard, and crouches beside him at the fire pit.

“It’s good to see you and Adam getting along,” she says, orange firelight glowing on her face. The sun is just thinking about coming up, the whole forest nothing but blue and grey shadows.

“He’s a good kid,” Jack says. “You want part of this?”

“I’m not sure that would be appropriate,” she says, looking amused for no reason that Jack can discern.

“Your loss, these things are fucking delicious.” He turns the lizard and adds a little more salt, watching for its little limbs to get crunchy.

“Jack, have you asked yourself why you’re the one who gets the lizards?”

“He’s not bringing you any? Seems kind of neglectful.”

“He has brought me some small game, but I think he has different reasons.”

“I thought he was trying to pay me back for the clothes, but we’re way past that now,” Jack says. The forelegs are almost done enough, and he carefully shifts the whole body over the coals.

“Yes,” the Boss says, “you are.” She sighs in a way Jack recognizes, like she can’t believe he isn’t getting something really obvious. “Look, Jack--” she begins, and then tenses all over at a sudden and terrible cacophony of yowls and growls. It sounds like five particularly vicious alley cats in a sack, and that has to mean Adam is involved. Jack pulls the lizard out of the fire and leaps to his feet. All of them are going around armed, they’re not complete idiots, and so he’s able to charge off after the Boss without a moment’s hesitation.

They don’t have any trouble finding the source of the sound, as loud as the yowling is and with all the little snapping and swishing noises of abused foliage. The Pain is with them in a second, since it’s his shift on watch, and the three of them charge into a little clearing and then stop dead, because Adam appears to be grappling with one of his own kind. Before Jack can even look at the Boss for any kind of explanation, she’s yelling, “Tristan!” in a tone that makes both combatants freeze. Adam is pinning an older, more worn ocelot-man to the forest floor, and they’re both watching the Boss with the same ice-grey eyes. She goes tottering over like she barely remembers how to walk, and drops to her knees beside Adam’s opponent.

“Tristan?” she breathes, and he looks at her like nothing else exists. Adam looks like he has no idea what to do, ears flat and tail puffed up, and he makes one of those bizarre noises in his throat when the Boss says, “Adam, get off of your father.”

Adam leaps off, tail still brushed even as his ears shift forward in awe. Tristan sits up, and the Boss flings her arms around him. Jack and the others all stare off in different directions, trying to give them some tiny bit of privacy as they have a quiet conversation in a mixture of Russian, English, and ocelot noises.

By the time Jack dares to glance back at them, Tristan has pulled a large leaf, and is carefully clawing words into its underside. Adam watches him with wide eyes, and Jack studies them both, taking in all the little differences and similarities. Beyond the details of conventional family resemblance and difference, Tristan is clearly an older model. He isn’t speaking, and at a time like this that probably means he can’t, and the backs of his hands are furred to halfway up his forearm. Otherwise he looks a lot like his son. Jack wonders if Adam will inherit that receding hairline, such an oddly human touch to such a fantastical creature.

 _mai sun_ the leaf says, and Adam cocks his head, slightly confused.

“We didn’t have much time for English lessons,” the Boss says, “and spelling is hard.”

“It is,” Adam concedes, and looks at his father again. “I guess you can be in my territory if Mother loves you,” he says, and Tristan smiles, and signs _thank you_ as best he can with those paw-hands. The Boss smiles, and slides her fingers between his.

The rest of the Cobra Unit are standing ready when they get back, but the Boss vouches for Tristan, even if she does immediately closet herself with him and the End, to ask just how in the hell he survived. At least, that’s most of what Jack hears when he listens at the door. He jumps when someone rounds the corner, but it’s only Adam, here to do the same thing. He blushes at the sight of Jack, and Jack just shrugs, moving over to give Adam space to put one sensitive ocelot ear to the door.

There’s not much to hear, since Tristan can’t talk, and after a while the Boss starts getting irrelevant and sentimental, and they both have to scuttle out of the way as the End leaves to give them some privacy. He’s probably not the least bit fooled when he comes out to find Jack sweeping the kitchen while Adam rinses the already rinsed coffee pot, but he doesn’t say anything.

As soon as the End has shuffled off, Adam puts the coffee pot down and scampers out in the jungle. He’s been restless lately, and Jack hopes he isn’t coming down with something.


	9. Chapter 9

As Tristan settles in, Jack gets to know him better. He apparently picked the name after asking the Boss if anyone was ever named Sorrow, and has a good knowledge of the story of Tristan and Isolde, as half-remembered by the Boss. It’s almost like he has always been here, he fits so naturally. That’s probably a testament to how fucked up the Cobra Unit is, but comfortable is comfortable. Tristan makes friends with everyone, even the Fury, who doesn’t really do ‘friends,’ and the Pain, who smells funny and makes alarming buzzing noises.

For whatever reason, Adam always appears out of the woodwork when Jack and Tristan are alone together. It could be annoying, but Tristan is always glad to see him. He purrs at the sight of his son, and will rub his cheek along Adam's in a friendly way that always makes Adam apparently equal parts pleased and embarrassed. It actually is goddamn heartwarming to see all this family reunion stuff, even if turning a corner to find the Boss kissing Tristan like she'll never get another chance is a little like walking in on his parents probably would have been. Like any other cat, Tristan is never embarrassed, and if the Boss is, she covers well. Jack has the disquieting feeling that she might actually be too glad to have Tristan back to care.

They'll need to make a resupply trip at some point, but for now even the cigarettes are holding out and there isn't much to do but sit around peaceably so the neighbors can get used to them. Jack has already seen a couple of them in the underbrush around their little clearing, pretty little brown-skinned kids who look equal parts wary and fascinated. The Boss has been out to talk to a few of the old people, trading away some of their precious smokes for goodwill and making it clear that she and her crew do not care about oil, Communism, or Jesus, the three main thing outsiders always want to bother about.

One evening, Jack is reading a Spanish-language manual for a kind of water pump that no one even makes anymore when Adam comes to collect him. There is fucking nothing worth reading around here, so it's very easy to put his garbage choice aside in favor of following Adam out into the woods. He has the trail of a peccary and while it would be good eating, a capybara was almost too much for Adam on his own. Jack is pleased to be trusted to help.

It takes them hours to catch up to their prey, but by bringing Jack, Adam has turned this into a gunfight, where a creature without thumbs is bound to lose. He still almost gets himself gored showing off, but almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Still, while they butcher their catch, Jack makes sure to explain to Adam just how much he would have to hear from the Boss if Adam got fucked up on his watch. Adam makes a grumbling catnoise, ears flattening to his head, and Jack chuckles.

“Hey, I’m just trying to look out for both of us, kid,” Jack says, scrubbing his bloody hands on a fistful of leaves. It doesn’t work very well, and Adam catches one hand, bringing it up to his mouth and slowly lapping the blood off.

Adam’s tongue is just a little rougher than a normal human one, and Jack isn’t quite sure why he can’t seem to stop cataloging everything about it as it probes between his fingers and slides along his palm. He shivers, and Adam looks at him with big eyes that gleam green in the darkness. Jack is about to say something, he doesn’t even know what, but then there’s a roll of thunder, and both of them scramble to collect their meat before it gets rained on. They’re far enough out that they hole up in a shallow cave, Adam cuddled up against Jack and purring softly. It’s a very restful sound, and Jack lets it lull him to sleep.

At about six am, the rain has tapered off to the kind of inconsequential mist that Jack doesn’t mind packing fresh meat through, and he ruffles Adam’s hair where his head is resting on Jack’s shoulder. “Rise and shine,” he says, and Adam yawns, revealing sharp teeth. He does a whole series of graceful stretches, and then picks up his half of their burden and leads the way back, tail proudly up.

Everyone is glad to see the local equivalent of pork chops, but the Boss keeps giving Jack funny looks, and he’s not surprised at all when she pulls him aside while Adam is taking one of his lessons in plain cookery from the Fury, who is very good at that sort of thing, for a guy so pissed off to be alive. At first Jack thinks that she somehow found about Adam trying to get sepsis on peccary tusks, and he’s working on his defense against that when she starts talking about ocelot courtship behavior and how careful she expects Jack to be of both her son’s consent and his own.

“Uh...” he stares at her, feeling like there’s something here he’s not getting. “He’s what, nineteen? They’d let him into the army and he’s part wildcat, seems kinda pointless to tell him he can’t hunt...”

The Boss sighs deeply. “Jack,” she says, putting her hands on his shoulders and gazing into his eyes, “ _I am not talking about hunting._ ”


	10. Chapter 10

All the catching up Adam has to do with his father turns out to be fortunate for Jack, because it lets the Boss take him aside and explain about ocelots. She seems sure that Adam is in love with Jack, and weird as the whole queer thing is, she wants the best for her boy, like any good mother.

“I understand if you’re not into boys,” she says, sharpening one of the machetes that are so easy to get around here, “but if you’re absolutely not, you need to tell Adam so and then let him get over his broken heart.”

Jack doesn’t say anything about not being sure of that, because he keeps remembering Adam’s rough tongue between his fingers. Instead he settles for shrugging and trying not to squirm too obviously.

“I… I mean, how do you even know, Boss?” is what he finally says.

The Boss chuckles, sets the machete down, and puts her arm around his shoulders. “It’s hard to say, Jack, but it’s very distinctive.”

Jack does his best to figure it out over the next few days. Adam is fucking gorgeous, but Jack doesn’t know how much of that is the human part and how much is his pure, slinky ocelot grace. Adam is nice to be around, but shit, so’s the Pain once you get to know him. Not that Jack has ever really wanted to touch the Pain, but Adam is just more touchable in general. And maybe it was kinda queer to jerk off with that guy in basic, and come to think of it, he was kinda slinky, too. A blonde, even, but with more of a red tint. Adam’s is so pure it’s irritating. All of them are getting shaggier and shaggier out in this jungle, and Adam’s lab-convenient buzz cut is turning into something completely different. The Boss occasionally catches him to clip it into a better shape, but he hisses when she actually tries to make it shorter, so she seems to be resigned to helping her boy through his transition into a longhair, non-existent God help them all.

It’s probably the fifth night when it all becomes clear. There’s a hammock by the fire, and Jack is resting in it, coming down from his shift on watch. It’s hard to go straight to from vigilance to sleep, so he just rocks a little and looks up at the stars, arms behind his head. A liquid little noise between a trill and a purr let him know that Adam has come up beside him, and he chuckles, not looking around.

“Hey, kid,” he murmurs, and drops his right arm, ruffling Adam’s hair. Adam purrs and nuzzles into his palm.

“Stargazing?” Adam murmurs, and Jack nods. “Room for one more?” Jack nods again.

It is a pretty big hammock, built to contain the Pain and, as witnessed by all of them at one time or another, the Boss and Tristan. Jack makes an affirmative noise, and then the hammock swings as Adam rolls his weight up and into it with feline grace. He drapes himself across Jack like he belongs there and hell, maybe he does. He’s purring, and it feels kind of weird but not in a bad way. Jack squirms a little, and Adam sighs, easily moving with him. Jack stares up at the stars for a while, and Adam rests his head on his shoulder, still purring. Fuck, it’s so much like a house cat. Is the Boss wrong, is this just feline snuggliness? With no idea what else to do, Jack lies there and feels Adam against him and watches the innumerable stars. They’re still technically in the northern hemisphere, but it’s a near thing and all the constellations are at weird angles.

“Dad says that here Orion and Gemini combine to form a herd of peccaries,” Adam murmurs, like he’s reading Jack’s thoughts. “Some of what’s left over makes the Hearth. Very important, apparently.”

“Peccaries, huh?”

“You’re supposed to be careful never to insult the herd,” Adam says, and Jack chuckles.

“Well, we took the one we killed seriously and are eating every bit, does that count as being polite?”

“You’d have to ask the locals, really. Dad knows a lot about them, but in a forest-y kind of way.”

“…I gotta ask, how do you talk to him? I mean, we’re all figuring out his signs, but that’s pretty complicated stuff, linguistically.”

“It’s weird,” Adam says, with a shrug modified for his current position. “A lot of the time I just know what he wants me to know. Some of it is us speaking ocelot, I think. He’ll twitch an ear or his tail, or move a certain way, and I barely even need him to sign or write.”

“Huh. Does he really see ghosts? The Boss says he does.”

“All I know is that I walked up on him talking to a guy in a big feathered headdress who disappeared a second later,” Adam says, and shivers.

Jack glances down to see that Adam’s tail is draped across him, slightly bushed up with this remembered case of the creeps. Jack absently strokes the fur down, and Adam lets out a pleased, trilling growl that makes Jack’s face go hot. Okay, this probably is some kind of weird queer thing. On his side, anyway. And then Adam catches his hand in both of his own, and turns it over, pressing a soft, deliberate, and very human kiss to the palm. Jack wouldn’t actually lie and call himself particularly experienced, but even he can’t miss that. He shivers all over, fingers twitching to stroke Adam’s face without any input from him. Adam shivers, and then lays his ears back and makes a weird noise, rolling out of the hammock and running off into the night. Jack can only blink after him and wonder what the hell is even going on.


	11. Chapter 11

When someone runs, Jack’s instinct is to chase them, particularly if he has no idea what the hell is going on with them and has gotten sick of it. _Try to remember the basics of ocelot courtship,_ the Boss’s voice advises him. He has had that voice in his head since he was about fifteen, and he tries not to think about his guilty adolescent moments of being horny for her as he chases her son through the woods.

Adam goes tear-assing along like someone’s crazy house cat, rustling leaves and snapping twigs everywhere, and Jack bolts after him. Jack tries the Cobra whistle signal for ‘wait,’ and isn’t the least bit surprised when Adam ignores him. Eventually this wild cat-chase takes them just within Adam’s territorial perimeter, and he scrambles up a tree and vanishes into the foliage. Jack sighs, and leans against another tree to catch his breath. Well, fuck it. If this doesn’t work, they’re too far out for the Fear to hear much, and at least it isn’t the Pain on watch, who would _definitely_ rib them about this.

It may have been embarrassing as hell to have the Boss give him a demonstration of the right type of noises to get the ocelot part of an ocelot-man’s motor running, but he had left as soon as Tristan had gotten that weird gleam in his eyes, and he remembers the sounds fairly well now. Jack has never been a great mimic, but he has learned foreign languages in his time, and gives the weird, rough growling noise a shot. It starts very low in the throat, getting more and more strained and a little higher on repetition. It’s hard to get the right liquidity to the lowest parts, sounds a human throat was never meant to make, but Jack does his best. He maintains the sounds for as long as he can, letting them build and bounce off the trees, and surprises himself with how well he catches that weirdly avian quality some of the shorter growls have.

Just when Jack has run through his full repertoire of noises about three times each and is feeling like a complete idiot, there’s a little rustle overhead and then Adam drops down onto him the way he did when they first met. Just like he did then, Jack lets Adam get him onto his back and pinned to the forest floor. This is a lot better, though, because Adam is so much cleaner and there are leaves in his hair and the way his claws just barely prick Jack’s scalp and the way his eyes gleam green make Jack shiver. Adam purrs and leans down, close enough to kiss but rubbing his cheek along Jack’s instead. Jack can feel Adam’s cock against his, and he whimpers, swallowing hard.

“Beautiful,” Adam purrs, and then he does kiss Jack, all sharp teeth and wild grace. 

He does it as effortlessly as he climbs trees, and Jack growls again, this one all his own as he wraps his arms around Adam and holds him close. Adam growls back, muffled by Jack’s mouth as he ruts against the front of his fatigues. Jack scrambles to open the button fly, and Adam lays back his ears and hisses at the delay, making Jack laugh, breathless and happy.

“Easy there, cowboy,” he says, working himself out of the fatigues, “we’ll get this done.” 

Adam lets out a longing little growl, and then he has them both in one slender hand, rocking against Jack faster and faster as they get more and more slick. There’s a strange texture to it, Adam oddly nubby, and it’s good but so weird it’s distracting until Jack remembers about copulatory spines and groans. He pants harshly as they speed up, trying to stay reasonably quiet, but Adam can’t seem to help his weird, throaty yowling. When Jack hauls him down to bite his neck, he lets out something that’s almost a scream, and then returns the favor a moment later. It’s terrifying, those fangs so close to his carotid, and incredible, each sharp point sparking waves of sensation over his entire body. 

Jack grabs Adam’s ass and grinds up hard against him, and Adam shakes and moans as Jack kneads him roughly, incidentally pulling him open. One curious fingertip against Adam’s hole makes him whimper, the sound helpless and very human, so Jack keeps just rubbing him there, making little circles and moving with Adam, pushing when his hips rock forward, easing up when he shifts back. Adam looks wilder than Jack has ever seen him, and he gazes up into those wide eyes, captivated.

Adam comes first in another cacophony of yowls, but Jack isn’t far behind, feeling that strange, feline cock twitching against his own as Adam’s body shakes out of his control. Jack bites him again to muffle what would otherwise be a hoarse shout, and then kinda greys out for a second. He blinks back to Adam sliding jism-covered fingers across his cheek, and he can’t even be mad.

“Marking your territory?” he asks, and Adam rumbles low in his throat, tail flicking as his eyes get that wild look again.

“Yes,” he purrs, smearing his fingers across Jack’s lips and then pushing them into his mouth. “Mine,” he adds, and all Jack can do is nod.

It’s nearly sunrise, and when he’s sure he can stand again, Jack washes his face as best he can in some standing dew, and then takes Adam’s hand, chuckling at the way he’s trying not to pout. “You can do it again,” Jack says, squeezing his hand, “I just don’t want everybody making fun of us more than they’re already going to.”

“True,” Adam says, and laces their fingers together. They walk home in the first light of day, tired and happy and unable to care when the Pain catches sight of them and lets out a gleeful whoop, handspringing his way over to ask how their hunting went. “Perrrrfect,” Adam tells him, and the Pain cackles. Jack just grins at him, in the unassailable knowledge that today is already a good day

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoy this, you definitely need Leave My Kitten Alone in your life. I am delighted to have inspired it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Leave My Kitten Alone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16379033) by [Xogoi_Momo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xogoi_Momo/pseuds/Xogoi_Momo)
  * [What's New, Pussycat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17549738) by [Xogoi_Momo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xogoi_Momo/pseuds/Xogoi_Momo)




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